The Fight or Flight Response
Anxiety is one of those things that everyone experiences to greater or lesser degrees, and it happens to be a modern word for an often unnecessary and rather dated fight or flight response. It is not as useless a leftover from earlier days as wisdom teeth or the appendix, but for the most part when you experience anxiety actually fleeing or literally engaging in battle are not options, and you sit there in whatever anxiety provoking situation, feeling your heart race and maybe your hands shake or sweat, unconsciously probing for exits and sizing up everything not nailed to the floor as possible weapons, wondering frantically what you've just studied for that test, whether or not that person texting is going to merge right into you, how soon it will be before the plane crashes or lands, if that dentist is actually going to sadistically torture you to death or let you leave with your life and all your teeth, when will this meeting with the boss be over, do his/her parents even lik...